pbs_idea_channelfandomcom-20200214-history
Are Memes
>> MIKE: Here’s an idea: Internet culture has brought about voice: The Singularity. theme Recently we’ve been able to witness two major cultural events: the 2012 Olympics and the landing of the Curiosity on Mars. And aside from being totally awesome and killer, these cultural events have caused the generation of tons and tons more culture. Some of it is even more entertaining and in certain cases easier to view than the original events themselves. I mean, I saw more rhythmic gymnastics in animated GIF form than I did in broadcast. And all this culture has been seen by possibly millions of people. But there is one detail about all the McKayla or Mohawk Guy or any other meme you’re looking at actually, that unlike the olympics or the Mars landing, you probably don’t know. And that is where they came from. They just, poof, appear on on reddit or tumblr, no compensation expected, no context provided and no motivation except for what’s self evident. The vast, vast majority of people, and here I’m talking about CNN or your mom, they don’t know who, how or why internet memes are made. wha? Now, and this is the weird part, in the absence of these factoids, isn’t the appearance of internet culture, in effect, an automated process? Because if it is then, whoo, boy, you got yourself a singularity. There are actually a bunch of singularities but the one that people are the most familiar with is the technological singularity. Sci fi writer Vernor Vinge coined it to describe at time at which technology could essentially create better versions of itself. Central to the singularity is the idea of artificial intelligence. Basically, computers and software decide to build better computers and software which decide to better computers and software and so on and so on and so on until we have to send Arnold Schwarzenegger back in time to protect John Connor. It’s like a whole thing. And because humans aren’t involved in that improvement, it makes us, well, actually we don’t know. Infinitely self generating technology could bring about any number of things: world peace, a post-scarcity economy, a government run by vacuum cleaners, who knows. Post singularity is a time when, because the intellect required to conceive of it is so beyond our own, we can’t really be sure what happens. Now I’m not saying that internet culture is going to bring about world peace or a future where Will Smith has to save us from the vacuum uprising. What I am saying though is that many of internet culture’s features really look a lot like the singularity. Like a kind of cultural singularity. Using the technological singularity as a model, the cultural singularity would be a point at which where culture would be able to create more, better culture automagically. In a post cultural singularity world, culture would become increasingly varied and self referential, not to mention more complex in both its construction and execution. It would show up and improve at a constantly increasing rate. And while this stuff is generally made by communities of people, their output is usually the result of simple rules or code. They’re acting like a computer and as the community computer grows, so too does their processing power. Like compare the internet stuff made during the 2008 Beijing Olympics the olympics this year. There was a huge increase in both quantity and quality which will only continue to grow. Ray Kurzweil calls this the Law of Accelerating Returns and it means that by Rio 2016 we’re gunna have an infinite number of track memes. Now I know what you’re thinking because I ate your brain and gained your knowledge. First, it’s not culture which is making culture, it’s people, you dumb dumb. It’s true, you’re right. But think of it this way, the community of people which make image macros and other stuff, some of whom I’m sure are watching this video right now so you guys are awesome, essentially behave like automated process. Sometimes in response to events and sometimes not, sight unseen, this community generates media which for most of us just appears somewhere with no indication other than our inherent knowledge that a human was involved in any way. I mean, seriously. If I told you that Watson was responsible for these images, could you prove me wrong? We have technology that can do this kind of stuff. Okay and second, how is this different from any point in history? Culture always begets more culture, that’s how it works. Well, yeah, you’re right. But never before have so many people made so much culture so quickly across so many mediums for essentially no recognition or dollar bills. And never before have so many people consumed that culture without any concern about who made it, where it came from, or how it found its way onto BuzzFeed or 9GAG, which I hear are very popular with the kids these days get off my lawn. Where older cultural systems exist for basically profit, internet culture exists for... it’s really hard to say. Maybe pure expression, maybe altruistic entertainment, who knows? So yeah, the cultural singularity. What happens next? I guess I don’t know. And that’s kind of the point. What do you guys think? It’s a complicated one, but let us know in the comments. And if you’ve survived the vacuum uprising, please subscribe. splat YOLO. Let’s see what you guys had to say about Nic Cage: seel114 asks a sort of chicken or the egg question about Nicolas Cage’s acting career and much like the famed Zen Cohen of what is the sound of one hand clapping, there might not actually be an answer. Because it is not answerable. Okay, L5Animations, let’s, we’ll brainstorm. Cagian? Cage... Cagetastic? Cage, NiCagenificent, no that’s awkward. Cageicious, oh, no, that’s gross. Well, we’ll figure it out, but you’re probably right. TiredBrony leaves a really interesting comment about how all of the public adoration and media attention that is given to performers and celebrities, caused them to have to act out their own lives, which is a very weird thing to think about but probably true. Insert witty reply. Jeb Gavin points out that Nicolas Cage might not actually be able to be as weird as he is without his celebrity lifestyle. A bunch of other people also pointed out that he accepts the rolls that he’s given because he is in crazy amounts of debt which are two very interesting, sort of colliding points. ROBANN88 wants to know whether or not it’s possible to actually pour bees, well Jim Stovall in his pouring epic “Pouring the Bees” seems to say yes. There’s a link in the description. HewleyxAngel points out that the essential difference between YOLO and Taoism might be the difference between behaving in a way just for attention and actually embracing one’s nature. Nicolas Cage sort of has figured out a way to do both of those things at the same time. DeadlyWill subverts the meaning of YOLO and, uh, to his suggestions we also have an addition: um, keep the windows open while you’re painting. YOLO. theme Category:English Category:Complete